Recently, I encountered a message from a flower buddy. He asked: "The soil in the flower pot has been solidified. I heard that earthworms can loosen the soil for the soil. Can you buy a few earthworms and throw them into the flower pot and let the earthworms loosen the soil for the flower pot?"
Is there earthworms in the flower pot good? Should I clean up the earthworms? I believe many flower lovers have questions, and today we will talk about this issue.
Pros and cons of earthworms
In people's impression, earthworms have always been beneficial insect . In nature, as long as the soil with more earthworms is rich in organic matter, it must be very fertile and high-quality soil. In inferior soil, earthworms reproduce very little or even no one can be seen. Sometimes, in order to ferment fertilizer, experienced old farmers will deliberately put some earthworms into the fertilizer pile, so the fertilizer will ferment faster and the fertility will increase.
Earthworm is a very magical insect. It will keep moving underground like a snake, feeding on the remains of rotten leaves, bark and other plants. The plant remains are eaten by earthworms, and then excreted after digestion and excretion are earthworm cop. Wormcompost is a very excellent organic fertilizer that can loosen the hard soil, increase soil fertilizer, enhance the reproduction of various probiotics in the soil, and promote the growth of various plants. Therefore, the famous biologist Darwin has a famous saying: "There is no fertile soil in the world except earthworm manure." From this perspective, earthworms are definitely beneficial insects.
However, the situation of earthworms is completely different in the soil in the flowerpot. The space in the flower pots is particularly small and the soil is limited. Put the earthworms into the flower pot, even if there are only one or two, the soil space is not enough. Earthworms squeeze together with their roots in a narrow potting soil. The nature of earthworms is to keep moving in the soil. If they move too much, they will cause harm to the roots of the plants.
The following is a comparison picture of earthworms moving in the flower pot:
We can see that after the earthworms move, they will leave many holes in the soil. If these hollows are in the wild in nature, they can increase the breathability of the soil, which is very good. However, if it occurs in a flower pot, a large number of holes appear in the narrow pot soil, it will seriously hinder the growth of the plant's roots.
If we want to grow flowers, we must water the flowers and plants. If there are no earthworms in the flower pot, the soil will be a whole piece. After watering, the water will slowly spread throughout the soil, and finally the entire soil will be moist. But if there are earthworms in the soil, after watering, a large amount of water will flow away from the holes left by the earthworms. Moreover, because of the existence of hollows, moisture cannot completely spread in the soil. The soil in the flower pot will become moist in some places and dry in some places. The plant roots grow in dry soil will slowly wither due to dehydration, which will eventually lead to a large number of deaths in the roots of flowers and plants.
So, although in nature, earthworms are indeed beneficial insects, and there are earthworms in the garden, which is very good for planting plants in the ground. But if you put it in a flower pot, it will do more harm than good and will cause many harms. Try not to leave earthworms in potted flowers and plants.
How to clean up earthworms in flowerpots?
Since we know that having earthworms in the flower pot is not good for flowers and plants, how should we clean up the earthworms in the soil?
The space in the flower pot is relatively small, and earthworms can eat limited things, so generally there will not be too many earthworms, usually only 2 to 3. We can directly repot the flowers and plants, pick out the earthworms in the soil with our hands, and then plant flowers and plants with new soil.
If there are too many earthworms in the flower pot or you really don’t want to change the soil, flower lovers can also use some insecticides to kill the earthworms. Commonly available medicines include tea dry and Xiaobaiyao .
Sprinkle the tea dry powder on the surface of the soil. Each time you water it, the ingredients of the tea dry powder will seep into the soil with the water, killing the earthworms.(Tea suckling is the residue after oil tea seeds oil, which can be bought in agricultural products stores) In addition to tea suckling, you can also use Xiaobaiyao. Build the Xiaobaiyao into the soil in the proportion of the instructions (Xiaobaiyao is an insecticide and can be purchased online) Xiaobaiyao will quickly release the effect and kill the earthworms and other insects in the soil.
